


Child give me your hand (so that I may walk in the light of your faith in me)

by imadetheline



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt Luke Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadetheline/pseuds/imadetheline
Summary: A strange sense of numbness fills him instead, as if the Force is dragging his limbs down with its weight. He can’t quite feel them anymore. There’s a fog over everything, Vader approaching through a haze. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter if he’s captured, if he’s killed. He simply can’t find the energy to make himself care.Or: The Force takes rather drastic measures to show Luke the good still left in his father.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 20
Kudos: 194
Collections: Luke and Vader Bonding





	Child give me your hand (so that I may walk in the light of your faith in me)

**Author's Note:**

> title is a quote by Hannah Kahn
> 
> had an idea and just had to write it. hope you guys like it!

He’s so tired. His knees are shaking from the strain of the crash, and each inhale is shaky. He thinks he might have broken a few ribs. His whole body aches. But that’s not the source of the exhaustion. Darth Vader is standing across the clearing, red blade ignited and shining over the dark leaves and underbrush. Luke’s own saber is green in the darkness, but it trembles, and he just can’t find the energy to be defiant or angry or determined to escape even as his father begins to move towards him.

_ His father.  _ He’d been angry after Bespin for weeks, angry at Ben, at Yoda for never telling him, at his father for never finding him and for cutting off his hand, at the emperor, at the whole kriffing galaxy. He’d ignored the bond with his father that he could feel tugging at the back of his mind occasionally, had locked it up. But now, he can’t seem to find that spark of anger anywhere. It’s simply been snuffed out.

A strange sense of numbness fills him instead, as if the Force is dragging his limbs down with its weight. He can’t quite feel them anymore. There’s a fog over everything, Vader approaching through a haze. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter if he’s captured, if he’s killed. He simply can’t find the energy to make himself care.

The green light of his saber disappears, and it slips from his grasp. He hears it drop heavily to the ground with a thump of finality, but it’s as if it’s an echo, or he’s underwater. He doesn’t remember; maybe he is.

There’s a loud ringing in his ears, and everything’s out of focus. Maybe he really is drowning. It wouldn’t surprise him. He’s still not a good swimmer. Han had attempted to teach him at one of their bases, but he wasn’t the most proficient at it. Distantly, he feels his knees buckle. Maybe not drowning, his brain whispers distractedly. 

Something catches him before he hits the damp ground. The only clear thing is the cold, the swirling cold wrapping around him, asking questions his muddled brain can’t quite process. That he should probably be frightened doesn’t even register. The Force is whispering calm reassurances as it drags him down, down into its depths. It wants to show him something.

There’s a gentle prodding at the back of his mind, and he lets it in. Why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t remember. It doesn’t matter now; the cold flames are in his mind, and he doesn’t hide from them. Luke can sense their desperation, their fear. He doesn’t know why they’re scared. All Luke can feel is nothing, and it’s comforting. His eyes have closed, the haziness in his vision fading to blackness, but he’s not asleep. He can’t sleep, not with the cold pulling at him, trying to drag him back to his body. He swats at the flames in his mind. Luke just wants to fade away, let the darkness take him.

The voice is desperate, the cold clinging to him.  _ Luke, my son, you need to wake up. _

My son. It echoes through the last threads of Luke’s consciousness. He doesn’t remember being called that. An image floats to his drifting mind: rolling yellow dunes and twin suns setting below the horizon. A young boy is sitting cross-legged, sand sifting through his fingers as he grasps at it, his gaze fixed firmly on the sky and the barely visible stars. An ache is heavy in the boy’s chest: an ache for a long-dead father to sweep him away in loving arms to see those stars that seem so distant. 

The cold flames in Luke’s mind shrink back from the image in guilt and sadness that Luke can feel more clearly than he can feel his own emotions at the moment. Before, Luke would have been glad, would have used the slip in the cold’s focus to finally drift into the calling darkness. But the ache is suddenly not only in the fading little boy’s chest. Luke can feel it in his own.

Memories are flooding back to Luke: pain and fear and confusion, and he’s grasping desperately for the hold on reality that has slipped away from him. He knows he’s panicking, but he’s lost in a swirl of thoughts and pain in the Force, unable to wrench himself free. He wants the empty numbness back.

The ache in his chest is still there, like a pressure on his lungs. He can’t breathe. He’s being crushed by the heartbreaking longing for a father, not long-dead, but that does not want him, and that’s almost worse. This father had cut off his hand instead of wrapping him in loving arms.

Suddenly, the cold flares in anger, and another softer but more powerful emotion, and then it’s slicing through the whirlwind of darkness and painful memories of death and loss, straight to Luke’s racing mind. There’s a path there, a bond acting as a bridge back to reality. Luke can see it as clearly as if he’s standing in the eye of a hurricane. He sees the offer, the familiar hand extended in promise, but he sees past that too: he sees darkness and fear, but he sees hope, and very clearly he sees light. That was what the Force had wanted to show him; it sings with the truth of it. 

The cold flames are flickering, strength waning even as they beg for him to fight towards them. If he turns away now, gives up, and slips away, he’ll be spared pain and loss… But he’ll never see how bright that light could shine. It’s not really a choice. 

He reaches for that coldness,  _ his father _ , he finally remembers, and pulls. 

And then he’s gasping for breath, the pressure on his lungs very real as he struggles to pull in air. His whole body is screaming in pain, but suddenly there’s a familiar coldness wrapped around his mind, and it’s dimming the misery and assisting in expanding his lungs. But more than that, there’s a warmth wrapped around his body, and he blinks open his eyes to find the skeletal mask of Darth Vader looking down at him as he cradles Luke in his arms like a child. Luke finds he doesn’t mind, can’t find it in him to mind much at the moment, but that’s at the bottom of his list. 

The Force’s quite dangerous attempt at tying them together, at proving Luke right, that there was some light left in his father, had been successful. Although Luke almost wants to yell at the flowing energy for its confirmation choice, that nearly ended in his death.

He’s distracted by a gloved hand against his cheek, radiating heat from the machinery underneath, and then there’s an echo across their bond in reassurance.  _ I do… want you, my son.  _

And despite his previous doubts, Luke knows, has known since that unnameable emotion had driven his father to rend the Force in two to pull his son back from death. The smile pulls at his aching muscles, but Luke does it anyway. It’s dark, but here in his father’s arms, there’s a light pulsing steadily around them. He knows only he can see it burning in the Force, but it’s enough for now. The numbness doesn’t return.

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys liked it leave a comment. They make my day! Seriously I love reading them so please leave me one cause they motivate me to write more! if you guys have ideas for other stories send me an ask on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/imadetheline) or just yell about stuff with me. Info about me and all my other tumblrs are [here](https://infoabtmaddie.carrd.co/#)


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